Sunday, September 20, 2009

Q&A with SCENEaSOTA's Emma Berg

Saturday night's MNfashion Week show SCENEaSOTA boasts a bevy of local fashion talent. Among the designers is someone not at all new to the local fashion scene, Emma Berg. It will be the mplsart.com director, Fox Tax Gallery curator and all-around fashion plate's debut collection. I sat down with Emma, who also happens to be a good friend of mine, for an impromptu interview over wine at her Minneapolis home, where she told me more about the collection and her design background.

JP: Tell me where you’re at right now. It’s a couple days before the show and you have a lot to do. How are you feeling?

EB: I’m feeling pretty good. I have a finale piece to finalize. I’m trying to figure out where it is I want it to go because it’s not as extreme as I want it to be.

[An Emma Berg look for SCENEaSOTA / image by Stephanie Hynes]

JP: What inspired the finale piece?

EB: I had this color palette and I actually had another piece picked out that had an abundance of ruffles, and it didn’t seem like it was pushing it enough. So I went back to the fabric store and found this fabric. It’s this crazy folded white satin, and I just fell in love with it, so I’m trying to figure out how to make it work.

JP: It kind of reminds me of the accordion fabric that Ra’mon-Lawrence Coleman used for his “Eluded Love” show.

EB: Yes, very.

JP: But a wintry version.

EB: Yes. And with all of these, I’m trying to create something I haven't done before. Especially with this final piece, I want to make sure that I’m learning something from it.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE at l'etoile magazine.